The Pleo Diaries: The maiden voyage

Allow me to begin the Pleo Diaries with the admission that I am the ultimate anti-gadget girl. Things that go “whiz!”, “beep!” and “zing!” do not thrill me. I loathe the words “assembly required” and avoid reading instructions at all costs. And although I am grateful for my PowerBook and iPhone, I savor the rare day that I am able to leave them at home.

So, when I was offered the chance to “test drive” a Pleo I was wary. What on Earth would I do with a robotic dinosaur? Then my boyfriend emailed me a picture of an idyllic spot situated along the Hudson River and invited me to come hang out there with him and his family — including his sister and her three kids. HER THREE KIDS. Well, what kid doesn’t love dinosaurs, right? They go together like peanut butter and bananas and ants and magnifying glasses. (Just kidding.)

I immediately had the green guy shipped to Manhattan and trundled him through the lines and down the escalators at Penn Station. A couple carrying a giant box with a picture of a dinosaur plastered on the side earned us a few raised eyebrows, but in the Big Apple I’ve learned that nothing is very surprising.

Elka meets “Baby Nathaniel.”

My boyfriend’s father and five-year-old niece, Elka, were waiting for us when we arrived in Hudson. Elka was initially lukewarm about the whole dino thing, but perked up when I told her we would need her help in deciding what to call him. By the time we got to the house she declared that our dino was a girl and her name, henceforth, would be “Rosie.”

Together, Elka and I gingerly opened the box and cast our eyes on a sleeping Rosie for the first time.

“She’s pretty cute for a dinosaur,” I said.

“Yeah,” agreed Elka. “But I think she’s actually a boy.”

“Really? How can you tell?” I asked.

“Um, I just know,” she said. “And his name isn’t Rosie. I think we should call him Baby Nathaniel.”

(Now, if Baby Nathaniel isn’t the greatest name in the history of dinosaurs, I don’t know what is.)

I plugged in the battery and told a visibly disappointed soon-to-be kindergartener that it would probably be a few hours before we could “hatch” our baby. On a whim I clicked his switch to on, expecting nothing to happen, and after a longish pause he opened his eyes! (Had I not succumbed to my phobia of instructions, I would have read that he was already charged and ready to go.)

“Whoa!” my boyfriend, Elka and I all said in unison. We were mesmerized. And speechless.

“Here! Feed him this!” I shouted, breaking the silence as I excitedly thrust a plastic leaf into Elka’s hand.

At first he was too busy wagging his tail and squawking and screeching to notice the leaf, but after a few minutes he chomped down and started chewing! Well, more like making chewing and swallowing noises, but it was still incredibly impressive.

(Later my boyfriend’s mother would claim that he also often “farted” after a few bites of leaf, but thankfully I never witnessed this.)

“No way!” we cried. “He’s really eating it!”

Then I scratched him under his chin and Baby Nathaniel curled his neck around my hand.

“He likes it!” I said proudly.

“He likes me!” I gushed.

“I want to take him into the big house,” Elka said, scooping Baby Nathaniel under her arm.

And with that, we clicked him back to sleep and tromped off to share our new pet with Elka’s younger brother, Isaiah.

“The Pleo Diaries” is a new Tails of the City series. Look for the second installment next Thursday.